Attitude Shift. Course Correction.

I spent some time in Florida this past weekend in this amazing house, on this amazing island, with these amazing beaches, in this amazing weather. The most relaxing and lovely weekend you could possibly ask for. Because my family all went to bed around 9pm, I had a lot of nighttime free to myself. I watched tv. I played poker on my cell phone. I walked down to the dock and sat in a deck chair, looking up at the stars. And the whole time, I thought, "I wish I had someone here to share this with." It was strange to be in such a beautiful place and not to have a human being there with me, as lover and friend, to share the experience.

And so on Saturday night, with the quiet waves lapping at the dock, I flipped through my cell phone directory, looking at all the people I regularly have contact with. I needed to speak with a friendly voice. More specifically, a female voice. I looked at the names of recent girlfriends and lovers and for one reason or another decided against calling each one of them. I would stop and think about each person and think about where they probably were right then and what they probably were doing. I remembered recent conversations with them and replayed the last time that I saw them. And in every case there was something, be it anxiety or a little bit of anger, that kept me from calling them.

In the end, I sent out two text messages to two girls. I never heard back from them.

I quietly put my phone away and looked back up at the stars and the amber glow of the distant city of Sarasota and gave thought to my recent relationships. I picked up each individual relationship and examined them thoroughly. I winced at my own missteps and tried to shrug off the other persons missteps. I kept asking, "How did I end up at this place, with this person? When what I wanted was this other place entirely. And either never got there or got there and lost it." How did that happen?

After considering the whole variety of my recent relationships, I stepped back and considered the actual bigger picture and there is a pattern that I'd like to break Several patterns actually.

I seem to have this habit, this very bad habit, of wasting energy meeting some new woman and instantly sizing her up and considering her as a possible partner. And if I like them, I slavishly follow and support them against overwhelming evidence that it's not going to work out. (In fact, it's arguable that the less likely it is, the more I miss this person.) And if I don't physically like them, I just sort of pass them over and chase after this other person. They're resigned to the category of "just friends" and there isn't a single thing that they can do to change that.

I don't want that anymore. I want to be able to have female friends without adding that pressure to them or to me. I want to meet a girl and get to know them, without any sort of ulterior motive. I want to appreciate these people for who they are and not what they can eventually mean to me. I want to remove that whole way of thinking, entirely, and approach women with a whole different attitude. I want to grow up, a little bit.

I also waste a lot of time and energy thinking about the past. Given that there isn't any way to really think about the future and there's no present activity to focus on now, it makes sense that the past is what I think about. But there's a trap in that. Spend too much time looking back and you get lost in a maze of self-examination. Do that and you're not open or ready or healthy when some wonderful new person comes along. And how can you possibly hope for a lasting, healthy relationship with that wonderful, new person, when so much of your focus is on people who just aren't around anymore. How can the new person compete with the memory of the old people? And why should they?

(And yes, yes, I know, this whole post is about looking back and getting lost in just that sort of behavior. I get that. As long as it leads to some sort of new understanding. I think it does.)

I'm 32 years old. The opportunities that I have open to me are the opportunities that present themselves to a 32 year old man. They're vastly different than the opportunities available to a 25 year old man. Or a 20 year old. Different opportunities demand different procedures. Different behaviors. One must evolve or die.

I've been working so hard lately to find someone, to be with someone, to love and to be loved. I spend so much free time thinking about these people, my recent exes. I need to shake that off. I need to take that whole mindset off and shake my head and clear my thoughts and either look forward or focus on the here and now. Love and Companionship will take care of itself. Thinking about it and Over-analyzing it won't make one bit of difference in actually affecting the outcome. Life is better lived, enjoyed without placing this pressure on myself.

Let's see if I can't waste my time and energy more productively.
Similarly, let's see if I can't just "actually be friends" with girls without placing a whole lot of pressure on myself to impress or attract them as potential partners.
And for God's Sake, let's waste no more time or energy lamenting these otherwise wonderful, but completely unavailable women. There's just no future in that.

This is my new attitude.
Let's see where it takes me.

Cheers,
Mr.B